Workplace Behaviour, Safety and Health
Senior 6 · Entrepreneurship
Workplace Behaviour, Safety and Health
Lesson 3 of 5
35 min
A bag of flour weighing 50 kg sits on the floor of a bakery in Huye. The bag is a hazard: something that can cause harm. Whether it does depends on the risk: how likely it is that someone is hurt, and how badly. If one worker lifts it alone twenty times a day, bending from the waist, the risk of a back injury is high. With a trolley and a shelf at waist height, the same hazard carries a low risk. Making work safer means finding hazards, judging the risks and controlling them in the most effective way. (An illustrative bakery.)
Definition
Hazard: anything with the potential to cause harm, such as a machine, a chemical, a wet floor or long working hours. Risk: the combination of how likely the harm is and how severe it would be.
Definition
Risk assessment: a careful look at what could cause harm at work, who could be harmed and how, and whether the controls are enough; Article 81 of Law N° 66 of 2018 requires employers to assess these risks. Occupational accident: an injury suffered at or because of work. Occupational disease: an illness caused by working conditions, such as hearing loss from noise. Near miss: an event that could have caused injury but did not.
| Kind | Examples | Possible harm |
|---|---|---|
| Physical | Noise, heat, poor lighting, wet floors, working at height | Hearing loss, heat stress, falls |
| Mechanical | Moving machine parts, sharp tools, vehicles | Cuts, crushing, amputation |
| Electrical | Damaged cables, overloaded sockets, wet equipment | Shock, burns, fire |
| Chemical | Pesticides, cleaning agents, fumes, cement dust | Poisoning, burns, lung disease |
| Biological | Bacteria, viruses, contaminated water, animal waste | Infections |
| Ergonomic | Heavy lifting, repetitive movements, poor posture | Back pain, strains |
| Psychosocial | Excessive workload, harassment, violence, long hours | Stress, depression, conflict |
| Fire | Flammable liquids, gas cylinders, cooking oil | Burns, death, property loss |
Each hazard is scored for likelihood and severity from 1 to 5; the product places it in a band and sets the priority. This is one common scheme; businesses adapt the scales, but the idea is the same everywhere.
Controls at the top work whatever people do; controls at the bottom depend on people remembering and complying every time. Start at the top and move down only when a higher control is not reasonably possible, often combining several.
Worked example 1: a bakery risk assessment
| Hazard | Likelihood | Severity | Score | Band | Control (highest level possible) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lifting 50 kg flour sacks | 4 | 3 | 12 | High | Substitution: buy 25 kg sacks; engineering: trolley and waist-high shelf |
| Burns from the oven | 4 | 3 | 12 | High | Engineering: guards and long-handled peels; PPE: heat-resistant gloves |
| Shock from a damaged mixer cable | 2 | 5 | 10 | High | Eliminate: replace the cable now; administrative: weekly checks |
| Slipping on flour dust | 3 | 2 | 6 | Medium | Administrative: clean as you go; PPE: non-slip shoes |
| Cuts from bread knives | 2 | 2 | 4 | Low | Administrative: training and a knife rack |
Priorities: the three high risks first. The damaged cable scores only 10, but it could kill and the fix is cheap and quick, so it is done today. Scores guide judgement; they do not replace it.
Worked example 2: measuring safety performance
A furniture factory with 140 workers recorded 6 injuries that caused time off work in 2025, in 280,000 hours worked. After a safety programme, 2026 had 2 such injuries in 290,000 hours. Compare the lost-time injury frequency rate (LTIFR), the number of lost-time injuries per million hours worked.
2025: . 2026: .
Change: , a fall of about 68%. Using hours worked, not just the count of injuries, allows a fair comparison between years and between businesses of different sizes.
Warning
Report every accident and near miss. Near misses are free lessons: the same cause may hurt someone next time. Under Article 82 of the labour law, the employer must declare occupational accidents, diseases and deaths to the social security body (RSSB) and to the labour inspectorate; if the employer fails to, the victim or their family may do it.
Healthier Workforce Center, "The Hierarchy of Controls". For each level, think of an example from a workplace you know in Rwanda.
Practice
Sources and credits
Written by Ganzaa: the bakery case, the risk matrix, the pyramid drawing, the tables, the worked examples and the practice items. The bakery, the factory and their figures are illustrative (2026).
This lesson adapts CC BY-SA material and is shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.
